IMPRESSIONS: Fatima Mohammed and her work. Right: Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim with his work.

Art exhibitions by students benefit a great deal by a hearty dose of encouragement. As visitors poured in to soak up the artworks of six Painting & Printmaking seniors from Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU-Q) at a group exhibition, We’re in the Same Room, the atmosphere at Katara Art Centre buzzed with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Featuring senior students Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim, Corinna Seto, Ayaz Abdur Rauf, Fatima Mohammed, Fatima Elzahraa and Nagiya Moideen, the exhibition, which opened last week at Building 5 in Katara, offers a glimpse into the artistic worldview of the current generation of Qatar’s budding artists.
“As senior students from the Painting and Printmaking department at VCU-Q prepare to graduate, they learn and explore the different ways in which they can present their work as a part of their broad and versatile curriculum. This show is the outcome of an all-student effort in realising and putting together the students’ personal investigations thus far,” VCU-Q said.
From multi-hued drawings to intense mixed media works, the six senior students put out an expansive array of works within a holistic discipline. “In these explorations the students have been invested in over the last three years, a rather diverse spectrum of ideas has been developed,” VCU-Q said, “Distinctive languages and methodologies have been explored and accomplished. Within these inquiries, we find the use of colour as an abstract language, vivid visualisations of memories, collection of data as a means of exerting presence, attempts of institutional critique on beliefs, identity and nations through examination of historical narratives.”
One of the students, Fatima Mohammed, shone her creative light on the essence of the region’s culture by referencing objects such as batula (face mask traditionally worn by women in the Gulf). “We are becoming very Westernised. Our histories are disappearing,” said Mohammed, dressed up in black attire, wearing a black hat and sporting a metal beak, rather similar to the art installation she has created, “The character wears a beak to show that she could speak her mind and be a strong woman.”
The beak is a constant even in Mohammed’s drawings, which are a lot like doodles and sport a “playful feel”. Pointing to a wall pasted with dozens of these drawings, she says, “I originally made 100 of them using unconventional materials – the ink was made out of my medicine, and I added a bit of Oud to the mix as its aroma goes references our culture.”
Another senior, Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim said, “I am an Arab and a Muslim. I am originally from the South of Yemen, but my family has been here for four generations. My merchant family also has strong roots and ties to Pakistan, India, Turkey and so on. I can speak five languages and eat food at home which is a mishmash of all these cultures.”
Abu-Futtaim’s work cleverly dissects the “confusion” he grew up with, that of the blurred lines of nationalism, tradition, culture and religion. “I started looking at symbols and would wonder why flags are such a huge part of nationalism. I was investigating what it represents, considering the fact that a lot of these borders and a lot of what these flags represent is colonial history,” he says, while talking about his art.
As Abu-Futtaim moved from deconstructing national symbols to demystifying cultural symbols, he created his artwork that uses carpet to understand the way objects change value. “Where did the carpet get the kind of sacred value it now has? I realised that it had sort of colonial and Oriental roots to it. After colonialism, when these people started coming and looking at these exotic things, they would exoticise them and decontextualise them and put them in museums. So the value of these things changed from cultural to almost religious,” he explains.
While a lot of cultures in the world use carpets, they aren’t as sacred or exotic as ours, feels Abu-Futtaim. As further exploration, he took an Iranian-Turkish carpet and cut it up because it had started to “represent” him. “The guthra that we wear represents the whole of the Arab people. As many as 40mn people from diverse cultures get clubbed under one word – Oriental. When I cut up the carpet, it was an act of freeing myself from what it’s considered to represent,” he reasons.
Next, Abu-Futtaim arranged the cut pieces in a pretty Islamic, Arab-esque shape. “And now people love it. It’s called Islamic because the pattern has been Orientalised. We have these big Western architects making buildings by throwing in some Islamic patterns and calligraphy and all of a sudden, it becomes Arab architecture,” he points out, “Through my work, I am trying to play with the meanings and values we hold to objects and things.”
Today is the last day of the exhibition.